Postcards From

We woke at a rest stop. Again. I’ve come to realize that these anonymous roadside havens, scattered like breadcrumbs along the interstates, are one of the most underrated gifts of American travel. They’re quiet sanctuaries for the weary. Always free. Always open. And, surprisingly, almost always clean.

At first light, there’s already someone mopping the floor, spraying down sinks, tidying toilets. They greet you if you make eye contact, just a small nod or a “morning.” You get the sense they’ve been there long before you woke. Unseen caretakers of the transient world. And maybe it’s that quiet, unnoticed effort that makes the road more human.

Today began the long haul. We crossed the rest of Illinois. Flat, featureless. The kind of drive that makes you forget what curves feel like. But even here, the states try to tell you who they are. Welcome to Illinois: Land of Lincoln. Welcome to Iowa: Fields of Opportunity. Every sign paints a portrait, polished and proud. A billboard’s attempt at poetry. These mottos feel like small state-sponsored introductions, someone handing you their business card and smiling wide. But they’re telling you what they hope you’ll see, not always what is.

Not long after we crossed the state line, we stopped at a legend: the World’s Largest Truck Stop. It sounds like a punchline, but it isn’t. It’s a full-on compound. A cathedral of convenience. Inside, the air hums with fluorescent light and fried food. There’s a barbershop. A dentist’s office. A chiropractor. A full-sized convenience store that spills into a truckers’ clothing section: shelves of heavy-duty gloves, neon vests, leather belts, and boots that could stomp through a snowstorm.

There’s a museum of trucking history. Chrome grilles and long-nosed semis posed like sculptures. You can buy a shower or a nap. You can play video games or sit down at a full diner. You can eat tacos, burgers, or an entire buffet. There are aisles of trinkets, dashboard bobbleheads, CB radios, spare parts, energy shots, windshield wipers, and six different kinds of beef jerky. There’s a chapel. There’s laundry. There are rows of showers.

It’s everything a long-haul driver might need in one place. A town for the temporarily stopped.

But what struck me most wasn’t the place itself. It was the sheer number of trucks in Iowa. At the truck stop, at every exit, gliding down every highway. This is the bloodstream of the country, and Iowa is the heart. Trucks pulse out from here in every direction, hauling grain, freight, fuel, parts, food—whatever it is we buy, wherever it ends up, it probably passed through here. Iowa, flat and ordinary on the surface, is where the supply chain beats loudest.

And so many people make that happen. I watched them at the truck stop. Thick boots, sweatshirts, quiet eyes. You can tell who’s been driving for years. Their bodies move slowly but efficiently, like they’ve stretched themselves across thousands of miles and haven’t quite recoiled.

There’s a peculiar loneliness to the trucker’s life, I imagine. You live in motion. Sleep in parking lots. Wake in places you don’t know the names of. You watch sunrises through a windshield and eat dinner beside the glow of a diesel pump. But there must also be peace in that. A simplicity in being unpinned. In living by the map and the mile.

Why do people choose that life? Maybe it’s freedom. Maybe it’s money. Maybe it’s all they’ve ever known. Maybe they like the silence. Or maybe the road becomes home before they ever had the chance to miss something else. Either way, I find myself thinking about them a lot. These modern nomads. Their trucks towering beside ours in the night, humming long after the key’s turned off.

The sky began to change in the late afternoon. Storms to the west. Lightning danced in the distance, far off but unmistakable. A road sign warned of high winds and the weather app warned of hail the size of ping pong balls. We pulled into a gas station and waited it out. Inside the bus, it felt cozy. The kind of cozy you only feel when there’s weather outside and you’re safe inside. On the news they said gusts up to 60 mph, but around us life just went on. Pickup trucks pulled in. People filled up, bought fountain drinks, chatted.

Maybe here, these storms are just background noise. Not threats. Just things that happen.

When the worst had passed, we drove again. Rain still clung to the windshield. The sun, low and stubborn, carved color beneath the thick clouds. It was beautiful in that understated Midwestern way. The kind of beauty you have to really notice and sit in.

Out in the distance, a field of wind turbines blinked red in unison. Hundreds of them. Perfect timing. Like fireflies, if fireflies were powered by software and steel. It felt alive. As if the land itself was signaling something.

We pulled into another rest stop. Another clean bathroom. Another row of sleeping trucks. Another anonymous, perfect pause. And another reminder that we’re just passing through the current, grateful for its stillness before the next push forward.